


The Scent of Pining

by americanphancakes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Christmas, Christmas Party, Dan Howell Is Not A YouTuber, DnP's age difference is reduced to 2 years, Foreplay, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, it's very brief but it's detailed but it doesn't get into anything super explicit, probably more accurate, sorta-kinda?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28517658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americanphancakes/pseuds/americanphancakes
Summary: Dan and Phil grew up together, but were separated by university and the mundanities of life. After years of missing each other, keeping track of each other's careers, and asking their families about each other, they finally reunite at a Christmas party back home. Surrounded by fragrances that cast their memories back to their childhood together, they each work up the nerve to finally do something about how they've been feeling for a decade.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 33
Kudos: 83





	The Scent of Pining

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah as you might expect I originally wanted to have this up by Christmas Eve but that did NOT happen! Probably for the best though, since the Phandom DELIVERED on those exchange fics.
> 
> Thanks as always to the nursing home gc, without whom this literally would not have happened. They didn't beta this though, nobody did really, because I just needed to get it done. But they were the best cheerleaders EVER. :)
> 
> Also thanks to ColeyDoesThings on YouTube, whose scented candles inspired this fic in the first place. :D

Dan and Phil had been next door neighbors as children, and they were best friends to that particular level where every adult onlooker found it adorable on some days and worrying on others. Nearly every time Phil left the house, he would insist on inviting Dan along. Nearly every time Dan was on the phone for hours after school, it was with Phil.

At 16, Phil confessed to his family that his “friend” Alexander was not, in fact, just a friend. The relationship didn’t last, but Phil was now out.

The next year, Dan was 15 and starting to date too. After dating a few girls, he realized he wasn’t interested in any of them. He’d skip dates with Emily to hang out with Phil. He’d cancel get-togethers with Andrea to chat with Phil. In the end, Phil was the person whose company he always preferred.

Dan began thinking perhaps he’d been looking for love in the wrong places, and that maybe his best friend -- the one under his nose the whole time -- might be the one for him. In fact, the thought kept him up nights. Did he dare risk a future breakup that ruined the friendship forever?

The answer was simple: there was no risk. He had no doubt Phil cared for him deeply, and they did love each other, whatever the capacity. If a romantic relationship didn’t work between them, they’d probably both feel it and understand and the split would be amicable. They had too much respect for one another. They were too comfortable with each other.

But then Phil left for university. He’d be going to York. Kind of far, but Phil would regularly come visit his family (and do his laundry somewhere a bit more trustworthy than the laundry facilities at school). Dan hung out with Phil on his first few visits, but then they skipped one, and then another, until gradually Phil’s time back home was typically Dan-less. 

When Dan went to university, he stayed local and went to Manchester University. But he was studying law, and the work was arduous at the best of times. Busy weekends spent revising were the norm, so he never seemed to be free to hang out when Phil was back in town. Then, just when Dan thought maybe Phil would finally be coming back home, the guy actually stayed at school to pursue a Master’s degree in video post-production.

And that was when Dan decided he was exhausted of waiting for Phil. So he stopped waiting.

Dan dropped out of school and moved to London, where his good looks and expressive voice eventually landed him a career as a radio and TV presenter for the BBC. Phil loved when there was a new documentary or special airing with Dan as the host. He was so proud of his best friend. Who seemed to get more and more handsome, more and more successful, and more and more out of reach every day.

Phil became a video editor by day and a moderately successful YouTuber by night. Dan never missed an upload. He wasn’t one to turn on notifications for anyone or anything, but for Phil’s channel? He’d duck into a toilet cubicle to watch if he had to. And then he’d watch every video three times just to make absolutely sure he didn’t miss any jokes or amusing details. He commented a few times, but Phil never seemed to notice. No likes, no replies.

Both their families lived in the same houses the entire time, next door to each other, and Dan and Phil would visit home occasionally. But, of course, it never seemed to be at the same time. But then, one year, Dan’s mother threw a big Christmas Eve party at her home. 

Dan and Phil were 28 and 30 now, and they hadn’t seen each other in person in about ten years.

~*~*~*~*~

Dan arrived at his mother’s house well in advance of the party’s start time, dutiful son that he was, in order to help set out the food. The scents of vanilla and cinnamon wafted into Dan’s nose as soon as he arrived, honey and chocolate and roasted nuts joining them and intermingling in the air as he arranged bowls and plates on the foldable table on the far side of the room. There was something missing in the melange of smells, though, that he couldn’t quite place. Either way, it was enough to engage Dan’s childhood memories of neighborhood Christmas gatherings. He smiled a bit absent-mindedly as he put snowflake-pattern napkins next to a particularly monstrous tray of his mother’s homemade biscuits. It was hard for him to keep his fingers away from them, but his mother was watching so he behaved himself.

“The Lesters are going to be here,” she said.

“Oh?” Dan said, trying not to ask if that included Phil, although the question burned in his mind.

“Mm-hmm,” his mother continued. “They ask after you quite often actually.”

“I mean they can hear me on the radio or see me on the telly anytime they like,” Dan said with a slightly bashful sort of snark.

“Yes, but you know them. They’re not gossips, they want to know how you are and if you’ve been happy.”

Dan shrugged. “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

She knew she wasn’t going to get anything else out of him, so she smiled a resigned smile, patted Dan on the shoulder, and continued about her business.

~*~*~*~*~

It was Dan’s job to answer the door eventually, as his mother needed to entertain the people who had already arrived.

Naturally, it wasn’t long before he opened the door and there stood the Lesters.

Kath Lester, all hugs and smiles, nearly squealed upon seeing Dan, excitedly rambling about how handsome he’d become and now the TV did him no justice and blah blah blah, and her husband Nigel and elder son Martyn apologized for her as they walked by, and behind them…

“Hi,” Phil said with a shy wave.

“Hey,” Dan said as nonchalantly as he could, taking the family’s coats and pretending the stack wasn’t as heavy on his arm as it was. He avoided eye contact, keeping busy with smiling at the rest of the family even though they weren’t even looking in his direction anymore. Phil hesitated in the doorway.

“Erm… d’you need help with those?” he asked, gesturing toward Dan’s armful of weighty jackets.

Dan was about to say he was fine, but as soon as he finally looked directly at Phil the words “If you don’t mind?” and something like a giggle came out of his mouth instead. Phil politely grinned and took his and his father’s coats and followed Dan to the guest bedroom where a pile of guests’ outerwear lay on the neatly made bed. The Lesters’ coats joined the pile, and Dan and Phil hovered nervously in the middle of the room, facing each other.

“How’ve you been, then?” Phil asked.

“Good!” Dan said, not all that convincingly but not entirely dishonestly either. It’s just that saying “i’m great except that being faced with you in person after all these years of watching you get increasingly attractive over time and putting you on a pedestal that just got taller and taller as the years passed is making me freak the  _ everliving fuck _ out” would have taken awhile.

“Good, I’m glad.”

“You?”

“Oh, yeah! Me. Yeah, I’ve been… Good, too.”

“Good. Good, that’s… good that you’re good.” Dan laughed at his own stupid phrasing.

Phil laughed a bit too.

“Hm. Well, I, er…” Dan gestured to the front room.

“Oh, yeah you probably need to get back to…”

“Yeah, opening the door. Such a glamorous job,” Dan laughed.

“Anything you do is glamorous, really,” Phil said, sounding far more earnest than an obvious ass-kissing should.

Dan, caught off-guard, frowned a bit, and nodded. He never was good at taking compliments. Never really learned how to. So he headed out to the living room wondering  _ what the fuck. _

~*~*~*~*~

“Dan, sweetie?” his mother said as she knocked on the door frame and peeked into her son’s very quiet bedroom. “You in here?”

An hour had passed. Or maybe two. All the guests had arrived and Dan was finished with all his party-related obligations. And he’d absolutely had enough mingling with near perfect strangers, eating silently by himself, and weaving through the clusters of guests in an effort to dodge Phil. So he’d retreated to his old room, still full of his things just in case he decided to actually stay over rather than getting a hotel whenever he was in town. He never did, but he was thankful for the readily available retreat for moments like these.

Dan lay there, looking up at the ceiling, his forearm resting on his forehead. He knew he probably looked dramatic, but fuck anyone who judged him, it was a comfortable position.

“Yeah,” Dan said without moving.

His mother walked in and sat at the edge of his bed. He could smell her perfume. Reminded him of dried flowers. She hadn’t changed it, not for his whole life. She smelled like home. Safety. It was nice. “Phil’s been asking where you disappeared to.”

Dan groaned and rolled over so his back was to the door. And her.

She sighed, and he could hear that she was more amused than annoyed. “Why won’t you speak to him? He’s missed you.”

“We haven’t seen each other in years, mum. What am I gonna say?”

“As you say, you haven’t seen each other in years. Seems to me like you have quite a bit of catching up to do.”

Dan rolled back over and grabbed the tonberry plush that he’d moved from his pillow to his bedside table. “He’s not interested.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I mean… I do contact him. Sort of.” Dan absently poked at the plush toy’s face, then absently tossed it into the air a few inches and easily caught it, and then absently repeated the tossing and catching as he spoke. “I never get a response back. I figure he has other things to think about.” He shrugged.

“Commenting on his youtube videos doesn’t count as contacting.”

Dan stopped playing with the tonberry and sneered.

“Admit it,” she said, “You adore that boy, but you comment on his videos because if he never replies, you can safely assume he simply didn’t see it. So that way you’re never hurt by being left on read.”

“Oh my god mum stop talking like a millennial, it’s freaking me out.”

“You say that like I don’t get left on read sometimes! It’s a modern problem, not a youth problem. Now sit up.”

Dan groaned again, far more theatrically this time, and reluctantly sat up.

“He’s going to have to go home eventually,” she continued. “You should talk to him before you miss your shot.”

Dan sat there, his hands in his lap, his shoulders hunched forward.

She looked at him knowingly.

“Fine,” Dan finally said.

~*~*~*~*~

“You’ve not said more than two words to your Dan all night,” Kath said to Phil, sipping on her probably-not-alcoholic punch as though it were the most delicious tea. The saccharine, fruity scent overpowered any alcohol smell it would have had.

“He’s not ‘my’ Dan,” Phil said. “He’s a person and he belongs to himself. Besides, I don’t want to be a nuisance. He’s probably busy helping with… party stuff.”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Kath said. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen much of him at all.”

“Exactly. He’s busy, surely.” Phil shoved a chocolate-covered biscuit of some sort into his face to stop himself from talking. It had a light but complex sort of flavor. Must have used good cocoa and maybe some spices in the recipe. Vanilla bean and cinnamon were in there for sure. It was a very… grown-up sort of cookie. He wasn’t sure if he liked it, in all honesty, but it reminded him of the cookies he saw grown-ups eat at the parties his mother dragged him to when he was in primary school.

And now she was dragging him into talking to his childhood best friend and teenage crush and… current crush… and possible love of his life  _ no Phil that’s stupid you’re being stupid stop it _ .

“When was the last time you two had a proper chat?”

“Well we said hi by the door earlier.”

“Philip Lester, you know what I mean.”

Phil shuffled his feet and shrugged.

“At least just… have one proper conversation with him, Phil. Just one. You were so close as children! You’ve been too busy to really catch up, and now here’s your chance!” Kath punctuated that last sentence by pointing down the hallway. Phil turned to look and…

Dan was stood there, hands in his pockets, looking unsure and awkward and just lovely.

“Okay fine,” Phil said, putting on more reluctance than he really felt right then. “One conversation.”

“Just one conversation,” Kath confirmed.

“Okay.”

~*~*~*~*~

“Hi,” Phil said.

Dan was frozen for a second, as though waiting for confirmation that Phil was indeed talking to him of all the people in this empty, long hallway.

“Er… hi,” he finally said back, smiling nervously.

Phil nodded towards Dan’s room. “Shall w--”

At the same time, Dan stuttered out “How’ve you b--”

They chuckled nervously.

“You go first,” Dan said.

“Well I was just thinking we could go to your room.”

Dan blushed and his brow furrowed. “Er… well I mean, that’d be a bit… Oh! Oh wait you mean… Just to talk? Yeah. Yeah, no definitely, we should, um.”

“Yeah,” Phil chuckled, blushing right back.

They walked into Dan’s room and Dan sat on his bed. Phil sat on the desk chair stiffly, making an attempt at crossing his legs to look casual, only to fail and give up. It made Dan laugh though, which was nice. Dan’s room smelled like wood and books and candy and fresh plastic. Just like it always had. It reminded Phil of all the times they showed off their new toys on Christmas as kids. He refused to let the nostalgia make him cry.

“You still have the tonberry plush I gave you?” he said instead.

“Yeah,” Dan replied. “It was my favorite gift that year. God, I remember I missed you so much already. Even just a few months without you around all the time was really hard. That Christmas was… Holy shit, was that the last Christmas we saw each other in person?”

“I think so,” Phil said, scarcely believing it.

“Fuck, it’s been way too long.” Dan said, fighting the misty eyes that threatened to cloud his view of Phil. “So anyway, how’s your youtube channel going?”

“Good!” Phil said. “Bit of a downswing these days. I’m kind of… Old Guard youtube at this point. I’m not really ‘cool’ anymore.”

“Boooo,” he said. “Who wants to be ‘cool’? You’re a legend at this point. I mean, you’re up there with, like… John and Hank Green and TomSka and Communitychannel. More active than Communitychannel, luckily, but you get it.”

“A legend?” Phil said, laughing at the ridiculousness. “I’m nowhere near John Green, come on. But you? You’re on actual television! You’re the legend, not me.”

“Oh god, no,” Dan laughed. “I’m… a complete nobody. I’m not a big deal at all.”

“You’re a big deal to me,” Phil said.

Dan didn’t know how to respond to that. His chest felt warm. He felt the corners of his mouth try to curl upward ever so slightly, seemingly of their own accord.

They could hear the low chatter and glasses clinking together coming from somewhere miles and miles away. As they looked at each other’s eyes, even that quiet, echoing din seemed to fade away completely.

“You’re a big deal to me, too,” Dan said. “Always have been.”

“‘Always’?”

Dan nodded. “Yeah, always,” he answered very seriously.

Phil felt his breath stop. Maybe he had a chance here. Was that asking the universe for too much? If anything were destined to happen between them, wouldn’t it have happened by now? It seemed as though the world was trying very hard to keep them apart all this time.

Maybe Dan was like an axe murderer or something and the universe has spent all this time keeping them separated for Phil’s own safety. One can never be too careful, after all.

So, in his infinite wisdom, Phil decided to ask. 

“You haven’t like… taken up axe murdering in the last few years or anything, have you?”

Dan burst out laughing. “Axe murdering?”

“Yeah! Not that I would judge you if you did, but we probably shouldn’t hang out in a bedroom alone if that’s what you’re up to.”

“No,” Dan replied, his amusement still obvious. “I can’t say I’ve been interested in becoming an axe murderer.”

“Okay good!”

“Or any kind of murderer, really. Why’s it always ‘axe murderer?’ We’re always worried that someone is an ‘axe murderer.’ Weirdly specific.”

“I know, right?” Phil replied. “It’s never ‘knife murderer.’ 

“Yeah! Or even ‘armed robber’ or like… ‘woefully inept with kitchen utensils.’”

Phil laughed. “Oh god, good thing. I’d definitely be in jail if it were the last one.”

“ _ Still? _ ” Dan asked, a hint of a giggle coloring his voice.

“Yeah, still. Never learned to cook. Except noodles. And like… pasta. Which, now I think about it… it’s basically the same process, innit?”

Dan shook his head, smiling uncontrollably. “All these years, you’re still fucking weird.”

“Hey!” Phil said defensively. “I’m not that weird.”

“You’re weird enough for me,” Dan said.

After a moment’s hesitation, Phil asked, “Do you believe in fate?”

Dan chuckled. “Nah, mate. I think we’re ‘destined’ to do whatever we decide to do. Not that I think we have control over everything, though. I mean, sometimes shit just happens.”

“Shit happens?” Phil laughed.

“Yes. Shit happens. Happens to me a lot, apparently.”

“Does ‘shit’ mean just bad things?”

“It’s both good and bad, really. Good shit happens, bad shit happens… And then we react to it.”

“So what do you think this is right now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think… shit’s been keeping us from reconnecting, or do you think shit’s happening now to make us reconnect?”

“I think… this party was an opportunity, and we’re taking it.”

Something about that response was, in Phil’s mind, extremely Dan. He didn’t give a straight answer to the question, no -- he answered outside the box. But Phil knew precisely where he stood.

Phil smiled. He looked around the room again, letting the nostalgia win just a tiny bit. As he recalled playing video games and doing homework in this room decades ago, the comfort of reminiscence flowed into him like magical starlight seeping through his skin and into his veins, warming him from the inside. He cleared his throat to force himself back to the present. “So… are you staying here while you’re in town?”

Dan snort-laughed at the very idea. “God, no! I learned a long time ago that actually staying here twenty-four hours of the day was enough to make me lose my mind. No, I got a hotel room.”

“A hotel room sounds lovely. Privacy. Room service.”

“Shower has shit water pressure though.”

“Do you expect I’d be showering if I came to your hotel room?” Phil teased.

Dan blushed and tried to suppress an excited grin, just in case. “I just mean I think a hotel room would be a better place to talk than my mum’s party!” he said honestly. “I just know that at any moment she’s going to barge in here insisting that I come mingle with even more people I barely know.”

“You may luck out,” Phil replied. “I bet she’s already tried two or three times and my mum has stopped her so we can have this time alone together.”

Dan snickered. “Does your mum think we’re, like…”

“Getting off? Yeah probably!”

They both laughed.

“We’ve barely spoken since we were, what, seventeen?” Dan guessed, patting himself on the back mentally for all this deflection he was doing. “Eighteen?”

Phil looked a bit hesitant. “I mean, to be fair… I haven’t spoken  _ to _ you personally, but…”

“But what?”

Phil opened his mouth to speak, but blushed a fierce red and closed his eyes, turning his head away.

“But what?” Dan pressed.

“I er… I ask about you. All the time.” Phil bravely glanced up at Dan, but averted his eyes again fairly quickly. “And… I get excited whenever you’re going to be hosting a special or a documentary or anything. You can ask my mum, I always call her to make sure she’s watching. I used to listen to you on the radio every day, too. God, this is embarrassing.”

Dan’s eyes sparkled. “I don’t think even my mum gets that excited about me hosting things anymore.”

“Well, I do. It’s been really cool watching my best friend grow up. You seem so much more confident, you know? You’ve really come into your own. That ‘Nicer Internet’ thing you did a few years back, that was like… In retrospect it was like a turning point for you. You’re doing things that matter to you now and it really shows. You just… you’ve always glowed to me, but now… You’re...” Phil trailed off and laughed at himself. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

He finally looked up at Dan to see the smallest sheen of tears sparkling in his eyes.

“Wow,” Dan stammered, at a loss for any other words.

Phil averted his eyes once again, feeling almost intrusive now for seeing Dan start to cry. He was focused on the tips of his own fingers, somehow only a millimeter or two away from Dan’s. He lifted them, intent on bridging that tiny gap to Dan’s hand, but lowered them again quickly.

And Dan, having noticed this, immediately put his hand on top of Phil’s.

Phil looked up. Dan smiled and brought Phil’s hand up to his lips so he could kiss his knuckles. His hands smelt of soap, a scent that was somehow cool and warm both at once. There was a hint of his mum’s cookies there too.

“Thank you for saying all that,” Dan whispered.

Phil nodded stiffly. The weight of the air in the room had changed somehow, and he wasn’t sure what to do next.

Dan let go of his hand and wiped his eyes, quickly standing up. “So,” he said, obviously trying to keep his composure. He stood up and turned to look at Phil. “Shall we get the fuck out of here then?”

“Yes, let’s.” Phil smiled brightly, and Dan smiled back, and they left the room to get their coats.

~*~*~*~*~

It wasn’t their first time, not for either one of them, and not by a lot. But it was their first time together, and that was enough. They were both nervous. They were excited. They were unsure they’d be able to give each other the attention and care they each knew the other deserved. There was a lot of “Do you mind if I…” and hesitant touches.

Being more experienced in general, though, meant that Dan knew what he was and wasn’t into. And being with Phil meant that he was comfortable communicating that. He felt bold, empowered, and in control of what happened tonight. He knew Phil wouldn’t judge him for anything he wanted or anything he said ‘no’ to, no matter how unexpected it might be.

“Kiss my neck,” Dan whispered between feverish kisses in his still-dark hotel room. He leaned his head back against the wall and rocked it up slightly so Phil had access.

“I thought you hate when people touch your neck?” Phil said.

“I  _ did _ , but as it turns out that’s a pretty major erogenous zone for me.” Dan’s voice was low and soft and the sexiest thing Phil had ever heard.

“Oh?” Phil said, raising his eyebrows with curiosity and intrigue.

“Yes, okay? Shut up and kiss my fucking neck already.”

Phil chuckled and readily obeyed Dan’s command, plunging his face into the crook of Dan’s neck and kissing, licking, even dragging his teeth on the very sensitive skin there. He could smell Dan’s cologne now, rich and dark and woodsy and nice. Dan moaned loudly, and Phil knew he’d always associate this scent with that incredible, gorgeous sound.

“Oh fuck, Phil…”

In the interest of science, Phil closed his lips around Dan’s neck and started sucking hard.

Dan gasped. “Fuck fuck fuck yes, oh my god, Phil…”

Phil amped it up by bringing his teeth into the equation. Dan keened, high-pitched and loud and sudden, and dug his fingernails into Phil’s shoulders. Phil grunted at the sudden pressure and pressed Dan’s body closer to his. He pulled away from the lovebite he’d given, licking it gently once to soothe the sting, and then kissed Dan on the lips as though his life depended on it.

He regretted, somewhat, that the flavor of Dan’s mouth was brand-new to him and wouldn’t bring back any memories of the decade when they could have been together but weren’t. But tonight, right now, he was holding onto Dan, and Dan was holding right back onto him -- and neither had any intention of ever letting the other go.

~*~*~*~*~

So, ultimately, Phil  _ did _ need to take a shower in Dan’s hotel bathroom. 

It really was a shame about the water pressure, too, since this was a nice wide bathtub with a shower head actually mounted high enough up the tile wall. Of course Dan, equally as tall as Phil if not slightly taller, probably stayed in the area often enough to know where to book for such luxury.

Dan’s shampoo sat in one corner, and Phil couldn’t resist popping the cap open and smelling it. Clean, bold, and so very Dan. He memorized the scent, but opted not to use it himself since he hadn’t asked Dan if he could.

The hotel’s shampoo was an interesting mix of pine and freesia, or perhaps cedar and lilac… It reminded him of darkness and light both together, like a fireplace burning in a darkened ski cabin or snowfall shining against the night sky. He scrubbed his hair with it with a smile on his face, knowing the smell would always remind him of the night he and Dan finally got together.

...He frowned. Wait,  _ were _ they together now?

Once he was finally rinsed off and he’d wrapped himself up in every towel that remained in the bathroom, he stepped out to the room proper and saw Dan deeply focused on something on his laptop screen.

“What’s the haps on the interwebs?”

“Never say that again,” Dan said without looking up and trying to disguise a smile.

Phil sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him, trying to psyche himself up to ask Dan the question that was still bouncing around inside his head, and only then did Dan finally look up. He twisted his face up in confusion.

“Do you really need three towels?” he asked.

“Yes!” Phil said defensively.

Dan snorted and returned his focus to his laptop.

“I do!” Phil explained. “One for my shoulders because it’s negative two degrees outside, one for my hair because I dye it and I don’t want to damage it too much with heat drying, and one for my waist because, y’know… naughty bits.”

“I can think of at least one of those that you do  _ not _ need to be wearing right now.”

“Don’t do that. I’m thirty. I can’t go again tonight. Yet.”

Dan laughed. It was musical and beautiful and Phil tied that sound together with the smell of the hotel shampoo wafting out of the bathroom.

“I think what’s amazing,” Dan said, closing his laptop and setting it aside, “is that you haven’t changed a bit since you left for university.”

Phil took the towel off his head and started drying it off. “Sure I have.”

“Well, you have, but only in good ways. Everything I loved most about you is still there. The way you talk and move, the way you’re unapologetically you. Your awkwardness. You even still do that thing with your hand when you’re nervous.”

“What thing with my hand?”

“The fidgety thing that you’re doing right now.”

Phil blushed and sat on his left hand to hide it and keep it from moving. Dan giggled, not in a cruel teasing way but in a charmed “see? I told you” way. And Phil smiled.

“So what were you looking at on your laptop?”

“Oh, I was curious so I googled whether or not axe murders actually happen.”

Phil sputtered out a laugh. “What?!”

“Yeah! Apparently Trotsky was axe murdered, not sure why I didn’t know that. Seems like the kind of thing you’d learn in history class. Oh! I also learned there was this serial axe murdering case on an island in the U.S., and you’ll never guess the name of the island.”

“What was it?”

“Smuttynose Island!”

Phil laughed out loud. “You’re lying. Really?”

“Really!”

~*~*~*~*~*~

The hotel sheets had that inoffensive clean cotton smell. Dan made a mental note to wash his sheets at home, he was sure he hadn’t done so in far too long. And then he made a mental note to clean up in case Phil ever came by. If he wanted to come by. If he wanted them to be an official thing now, which… he might not. It was a conversation that still needed to be had.

Dan had been nervous about asking all evening. This was still Phil. His Phil. The Phil he’d loved spending time with when they were kids, the Phil he felt at home with in his teens, and the Phil he missed terribly for ten years. This was the Phil that he’d been so sure about asking out before York decided to steal him away. Why was Dan so sure then and so nervous now?

_ Okay Dan. You can ask. Just ask. He’s in bed with you, he’s cuddled up, he obviously feels at least a little bit okay about this whole “being together” thing. It probably won’t be a no. In fact it’s extremely unlikely to be a no. Just ask. And maybe hurry because if he still falls asleep as quickly as he used to you’re going to miss your launch window here, bub. _

“Hey, Phil?” Dan asked quietly.

“Hm?” Phil replied.

“You awake?”

“Yeah,” Phil said, then yawned immediately afterward.

Dan smiled. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Erm… I should ask first… do you have the mental capacity to give a thought-out answer?”

Phil rolled over so he was facing Dan and smiled. “You have my full attention,” he said. He looked tired, but not nearly-unconscious, so Dan took a relieved breath.

And then he tensed back up again because he suddenly realized he didn’t even know if Phil lived in Manchester or York or somewhere entirely different and a relationship with Dan in London might be hugely inconvenient.

“Where, erm… where are you living these days?” he asked.

Phil immediately looked a bit concerned. “Promise not to axe murder me?” he said.

Dan’s head went back in surprise. “Why would I do that?”

“Because… I… sort of… live in.... erm… London.” He held the “L” sound at the start of London as though hoping his brain might give him a different city name.

Dan’s eyes widened. “You… how the fuck long have you been in London? Wait, was that where you moved when you made that video two years ago?”

Phil nodded.

“You’ve been that close to me for  _ two years _ and you never told me?”

“Didn’t know how to, really. I mean there was no way you still had the same e-mail address you created when we were in high school.”

“Well. A… actually…”

“You seriously still use ‘danisnotonfire’?”

Dan pulled the sheet up over his face. “Shut up,” he muttered.

“I admire your commitment to your emo period branding.”

“I’m going to literally flay you alive.”

“No, really, back then you looked…”

Dan pulled the sheet down again. “What? Stupid? Ridiculous?”

“Hot, actually, was the word I was thinking of?”

“Oh god.”

“I mean when you think about it, that was how you looked around the time I left for uni. That was sort of… the definition of ‘Dan’ in my head for a long time.”

“I’m sorry you had to endure that.”

“I didn’t endure it, I… sort of… had a bit of a crush on it. I mean, I had a crush on you anyway, and that was the you in my mind until you started showing up on telly all the time, so--”

Dan rolled his eyes and planted a smiling kiss on Phil’s mouth so he couldn’t ramble anymore. With a wet smack he pulled away and rested his forehead on Phil’s. “Shut up and be my boyfriend,” he said.

Phil gave a tiny, nearly inaudible gasp. “Really?”

“Really.”

“So you’re not mad at me for not guessing your email address to let you know I was in town?”

“No,” Dan whispered. “I’m just glad you’re finally close by. I want to see you all the time. Every day. Always.”

“I do too. To see  _ you, _ I mean. Not to see me. I see me in the mirror all the time.”

Dan giggled. So did Phil. They wrapped their arms around each other’s waists and scooted in a bit closer.

“I wonder if this is what love smells like,” Phil said.

“Like what?” Dan said, amused.

“Like… shampoo and clean sheets and Christmas.”

Dan smiled. “To me it does.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone had a great new year. Here's hoping 2021 is kinder to us all. <3
> 
> tumblr: @americanphancakes


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